Brielle and I take the longest walk in silence out of the school and to our cars that are side by side in the parking lot. I know something is weighing heavy on her mind because my own thoughts feel like a brick too.
We both hit the unlock buttons on our key fobs, yet neither one of us makes a move to climb in the driver’s side. Instead, we face one another, with the late-afternoon sun on full blast.
Our eyes lock and so begins our usual lingering gaze.
It happens every damn time.
Every drop-off, pick-up, birthday party, meals we have together as a family for Connor’s sake, every time she brought Connor to my games to watch, and I would catch her staring as I glided by on the ice.
It’s all a fucking simmer that never boils over.
“That went well,” she notes and nibbles her bottom lip.
I throw my sunglasses on because I need protection from staring at her blue floral-print summer dress with an annoying button loose at the top. The dress deserves to be hanging off the edge of my bed because it was thrown off in a moment of clarity.
“It always does. Parenting we’re good at.”
She snorts a cute little laugh. “I would say we aren’t that bad. She had to bring up the other week, didn’t she?”
A sound escapes my mouth as I debate if I can tease her about this or not. “It will go down as memorable.”
Her hand finds her hip. “Easy for you to say, you were the one who had to deliver the news to me.”
I hold my hands up in surrender. “I was put in an awkward position, thanks. Not easy for either one of us.”
“Connor asked you to deliver the news that I’m no longer allowed to write notes in his lunch.”
“Elle, he’s getting a little old for that, and when someone bothered him at school about it, then yeah, he thought it would be better if I talked to you to deliver the message of no more notes. Along with the need to no longer pre-slice his apples. Trust me, I feared that conversation with you all day.” I can’t control my smile at this.
She throws on a fake pout that is too fucking adorable. “I can’t handle him growing so fast.” We’re still young ourselves.
“Kids tend to grow up. If you’re missing having a baby, then I can volunteer my services again,” I joke, but the humor hits a little too close to home.
Her smile stills, unsure even, and it’s a good few seconds before her tone turns serious. “Should we be worried about what Mrs. Clark mentioned about the set-time-togetherness thing?” She whirls her fingers in the air.
My head lolls to the side. “Maybe.”
“I guess we should have a look at the schedule again since you’ll no longer have games.”
Ouch, that reminder.
The season that just ended was my last as a professional hockey player as the center and captain of the Chicago Spinners, thanks to age and one injury too many. Nothing major, but I don’t recover the way I did ten years ago when I was twenty. I feel a shade of pain spread on my face.
And she knows me so well, as she studies me with a knowing wry smile. “Going to miss it, huh?”
I shrug a shoulder. “It was my life for so long, but yeah, I’m good. I have a plan B, been planning it for a few seasons now.”
“Right, the new sports training facility near Lake Spark.”
I chuckle to myself at the way she says Lake Spark, as if it’s a mystical place that she fears in a funny kind of way.
During hockey season, I was on the road and stayed at hotels in the city. In my downtime, I escaped to Lake Spark in upstate Illinois. The place I remember from my childhood, through summers as a teenager with a particular brunette, and now it’s the place where I fully intend to make a life post-hockey career.
Brielle lives in Hollows, a perfect middle point between Chicago and Lake Spark. She’s always had Connor for most of the year, since I had training and game seasons.
“I enjoy it there. You still need to see my house again now that it’s finally finished, and you can see if you approve of Connor’s room. The interior designer did a good job, I think.”
She waves a hand at me. “When it comes to our son, then you know I trust you.”
